Pot of Green for Pharmacists

Harold E. Cohen, RPhEditor-in-Chief

US Pharm. 2014;39(2):1

For some retailers in Colorado, a
leprechaun’s pot of gold remains a mere Irish fantasy. A pot of green,
on the other hand, is definitely real thanks to a new state law making
it legal for some stores to sell marijuana for recreational use to
adults 21 years and older. According to a recent story in the Huffington Post,
more than three dozen marijuana dispensaries there reported sales of
“roughly $5 million” in their first week of business. According to
Denver’s 9News TV broadcast, sales of the heavily taxed weed
exceeded $1 million on New Year’s Day alone, the first day the law went
into effect. The Denver Post estimates that “as many as 100,000
people have legally purchased marijuana at Colorado stores.” The state
expects to collect approximately $70 million in tax revenues this year
from marijuana sales, so it may not be long before other states take a
serious look at legalizing the drug. It is widely believed that the
success of medical marijuana sales was the pathway to selling
recreational marijuana in Colorado.

This all seems very strange to me, as it should to most
people. For the fact is, federal law does not recognize medical
marijuana, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is
currently allowed to invoke the Controlled Substances Act to arrest
those who use it. The feds still consider marijuana an illegal drug
with no acceptable medicinal value. And while there have been some
legal actions taken against selected pot shops, some 20 states have
legalized the sale of medical marijuana—the earliest being California
in 1996—and this trend is likely to continue. Last month, New York’s
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he was formulating a plan to legalize medical
marijuana in the state and distribute it through hospitals. But one of
the hurdles he must overcome is the odd juxtaposition of state and
federal laws: On the one hand, a gubernatorial executive order would
give hospitals the right to treat selected patients with marijuana
based on their diagnosis, but current federal law does not allow
hospitals to buy or sell the drug to patients. I imagine it is this
dilemma that is standing in the way of other states looking to legalize
marijuana for medicinal use.

So the question becomes, should the feds
amend the Controlled Substances Act and exempt marijuana from many of
its penalties and restrictions? I say, not so fast. If medical
marijuana is going to be approved by federal law, it needs to be
subjected to the same testing as any other FDA-approved drug, complete
with clinical trials that result in outcomes proving that its medicinal
value outweighs its dangerous potential for addiction or abuse. Once
that happened, licensed retail outlets could distribute marijuana with
a proper prescription. Who better to dispense medical marijuana than
pharmacists, who handle and dispense drugs far more potent and
addictive than marijuana? In this scenario, pharmacists would follow
the same rules and regulations governing other DEA-controlled
medications.

If marijuana is going to be taken
seriously as a therapeutic drug, it should undergo all the controls and
testing of other FDA- and DEA-approved products and be dispensed by
pharmacists, who are drug specialists. This would also resolve the
current state-versus-federal conundrum and truly legitimize the sale
and use of medical marijuana.